


Snapshot

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Absent Characters, Angst, Episode: s04e20 The Last Man, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Landscapes and buildings, still life, still figures, perspective and paint - his mother taught him all the techniques, but Evan didn’t practise them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshot

He was never good at movement.

Landscapes and buildings, still life, still figures, perspective and paint - his mother taught him all the techniques, but Evan didn’t practise them. So he’s good but he doesn’t have his mother’s skill - it’s a hobby, not a passion.

And he was never good at movement.

He tries to sketch Teyla in her lessons with the female marines. The punch and stop of her hand, the bunch of muscles and the swing of leg and hair. Cadman admires the sketches over his shoulder while waiting for her turn at Teyla, but they feel static and flat to Evan. He discards them without qualm, looking for something else - something more.

Teyla tilts her head at him after the session is done. “Did you find the drawings you wished, Major?”

He folds up his pad and tucks it away in the satchel in which he holds his drawing materials. “Unfortunately not.”

“Will you return to landscapes?” She’s asked about his painting and drawing before, intrigued by the representations. Her own people’s art is more tribal, a representation of things, not a likeness. People are defined less by how they look and more by what they do. The Wraith steal the physicality of beauty, so the Athosians have learned to value the spirit and the soul.

Teyla’s not as conventionally beautiful as some of the women in Atlantis, but there isn’t a man in the city who’s never cast an admiring eye in her direction.

“Actually,” he says before he can stop to think about this, “I was wondering if you’d pose for me. If you’ve got time, I mean. I appreciate that things are pretty busy right now, but sometime. When our downtime intersects.”

Delicate brows arch as she slings a towel around her neck. “You wish to draw me?”

“Um. Yeah.”

She considers it as she swings her bag up onto her shoulder and pulls a bottle of water from it. “Very well.”

\--

It’s a minor prize as prizes go, but $1000 is nothing to sniff at.

Evan receives the time off to attend the presentation. McKay and Ronon accompany him.

“Oh. My. God.” McKay doesn’t seem to have noticed that his finger swims in a dollop of ketchup as he stares at the finished portrait with his jaw open. “This is... Um. Nice. Really...nice. The...light. And the colour. She looks...”

“Happy.” Ronon says gruffly. “She looks happy.” He turns on his heel and stalks away. Evan watches him go.

McKay glances after him. “He’s taking it hard.”

Evan knows. Sheppard and Teyla were Ronon’s touchstones in the city. Without them, the big man is finding it hard to stay grounded.

Everything’s coming apart. Atlantis holds together, but Pegasus is splitting, slowly being chipped away by Michael and the hybrid depredations.

McKay makes as if to clap him on the shoulder, then realises there’s ketchup on his hands, and wanders off to find a serviette and his team-mate, leaving Evan to contemplate the work: _Woman By The Water._

Teyla stands out in the sunlight on a balcony of Atlantis, her body facing out across the green waves. The city itself isn’t visible - nothing more than the railings, anyway - but the blue of the sky and the green of the waves sets off the rich sepia of her skin, contrasting brilliantly with the swathe of red silk draped over her standing form.

She’s looking over her shoulder at the viewer, not quite a come-hither smile, but one that holds secrets.

“It’s a gorgeous portrait, Ev,” says his sister, coming up beside him and handing him a bottle of beer. “You deserve this prize.”

He shrugs and smiles in slightly embarrassed pleasure. “I was never good at movement.”


End file.
